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To Veil or not to Veil

Europe’s Shape-Shifting ‘Other’

by Kamakshi P. Murti (Author)
©2013 Monographs X, 237 Pages
Series: Cultural Identity Studies, Volume 26

Summary

Immigration has become a contentious issue in Europe in recent decades, with immigrants being accused of resisting integration and threatening the secular fabric of nationhood. The most extreme form of this unease has invented and demonized an Islamic ‘other’ within Europe. This book poses central questions about this global staging of difference. How has such anxiety increased exponentially since 9/11? Why has the Muslim veil been singled out as a metaphor in debates about citizenship? Lastly, and most fundamentally, who sets the criteria for constructing the ideal citizen?
This study explores the issue of gender and immigration in the national contexts of Germany and France, where the largest minority populations are from Turkey and North Africa, respectively. The author analyzes fictional works by the Turkish-German writers Emine Sevgi Özdamar and Zafer Şenocak and by Francophone writer Malika Mokeddem. All three deconstruct binary oppositions and envision an alternate third space that allows them to break out of the confines of organized religion. In the latter part of the book, the voices of young Muslim women are foregrounded through interviews. The concluding chapter on the pedagogical tool Deliberative Dialogue suggests ways to navigate such contentious issues in the Humanities classroom.

Details

Pages
X, 237
Year
2013
ISBN (PDF)
9783035304053
ISBN (Softcover)
9783034308595
DOI
10.3726/978-3-0353-0405-3
Language
English
Publication date
2012 (November)
Keywords
integration difference citizenship immigration religion
Published
Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Wien, 2013. X, 237 pp.

Biographical notes

Kamakshi P. Murti (Author)

Kamakshi P. Murti is Professor Emerita of German at Middlebury College. She has published extensively on German colonialism and imperialism, minorities discourse, and second- and foreign-language education. She is the author of India: The Seductive and Seduced ‘Other’ of German Orientalism (2001).

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253 pages